


Lockdown

by Moransroar



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:47:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23777104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moransroar/pseuds/Moransroar
Summary: Their interview had been cut short by JARVIS’ message and the following countdown. Bucky looked alarmed but calm, just like Peter did. That was, until the once open door out into the hallway behind them swung shut slowly, and deadbolted a second before Peter managed to shoot up and try to stop it.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Peter Parker
Comments: 5
Kudos: 245





	Lockdown

**Author's Note:**

> Aw yeah babbey my first Winterspider fic. Enjoy!  
> This was originally written for a request I got on Tumblr. [Come send me a prompt!](https://iloveyou3thousand.tumblr.com/)

Peter would never have thought that losing power at Stark Tower could be such a big deal. He had always figured that, with Tony being his clever self and everything, they’d surely have several generators at the ready to keep things going.

And…they did. Or, they would have, if they hadn’t lost power on the same exact day that Steve had taken it upon himself to help Tony out with their generators, and had put that brute strength of his to…semi-good use. Or, too good.

JARVIS had informed all of them in a pleasant tone of voice that the building would be in lockdown until Tony managed to fix the backup generators, which Peter could only assume was going to take a while, considering the fact that the sun was about to go down and he knew how much Mr. Stark hated working without decent lighting.

Peter didn’t think he would mind a total lockdown so much, although JARVIS’ countdown until the complete power outage was a bit on the creepy side.

Maybe he would have minded more if he’d known that the security protocol that kicked in on the last count was about to lock him into Bucky Barnes’ room.

Peter was sitting on the carpet with a notepad on his knee, legs crossed, looking up to where Bucky sat on the edge of his bed. He’d been working on a history project for school, and knowing that with two actual fossils at his disposal he’d definitely get a good grade, he’d decided to focus on their stories.

So far things had been going well. Peter had never seen Bucky open up about his life so much, to the point where he was smiling as he told Peter about life before the war, and before things had gone bad. How he’d taken his favorite dames dancing, how he’d gone to Howard Stark’s first exposition, and patched up his buddy Steve after another one of his fights. With the way Bucky’s eyes lit up as he told Peter about it, Peter could barely concentrate. It was like he could picture it all. And although Peter couldn’t dance for the life of him, he wondered what it would be like to dance with Bucky, just right there in the middle of his room.

Their interview had been cut short by JARVIS’ message and the following countdown. Bucky looked alarmed but calm, just like Peter did. That was, until the once open door out into the hallway behind them swung shut slowly, and deadbolted a second before Peter managed to shoot up and try to stop it.

“What? What just happened…” He asked, throwing Bucky a look over his shoulder. Bucky looked significantly more alarmed now.

“I’m…guessing that’s protocol.”

Peter immediately took out his phone and texted Tony, who responded within seconds with an affirmative. Okay. Security protocol. Was there any way to override it? No. Was there any way they could get out of the room without brute force? Also no. Peter suddenly felt claustrophobic.

He flopped back down on the rug defeatedly. “It’s protocol,” Peter informed Bucky, “And Mr. Stark and Mr. Rogers and working on it, so… Hopefully it shouldn’t take too long?”

They agreed to continue on Peter’s interview until the only way that Peter could see his notepad was by using his phone to light his way, which definitely wasn’t ideal. He also couldn’t help but notice that the longer the lockdown lasted, the less relaxed Bucky seemed, now sitting a little stiffly on the edge of the bed with his expression pinched in the dark.

Peter wasn’t sure if he had any right to ask but he realized that he’d been doing most of the talking for the past ten minutes and that Bucky had barely said a word and that was not a good sign, even for him.

He was used to talking other people’s ears off and he knew that Bucky had always kind of been the quieter type but this felt off.

“Are you okay?” Peter asked tentatively, capping his pen and putting it down so that he could focus all of his attention on Bucky. 

The other gives Peter a tight smile and visibly tries to loosen his shoulders. It seems forced.

“I’m sure you can imagine why I don’t exactly like the dark,” he said slowly, and Peter looked at him with wide eyes and a nod. Yeah, he could imagine. Bucky had so many reasons why he wouldn’t like the dark. From the top of his head Peter could think of at least five, most of which had to do with the war, and maybe cryo. Bucky didn’t talk about that a lot but the comments he’d made on the subject still sent a shiver down Peter’s spine simply remembering them now.

“Or the quiet,” Bucky added, and Peter was acutely aware of how he’d been stuck inside his own head for the past minute or so.

“Right!” He piped up, “Right. Gotcha. Don’t like the quiet. Well, that’s something I can help.”

But how?

Because the thing about Peter’s abundant talking was that he was acutely aware of his oversharing, and yet never had any way of stopping it – and then, after, he always felt like he’d said too much. He wanted to avoid that happening with Bucky, because Bucky was… Different. Peter wanted so desperately for him to like him that he was always afraid he was saying too much. And Bucky was so nice that he’d probably never point it out to him either.

“Maybe you could tell me more about those dames?” Peter tried to tease lightly, hoping to take Bucky’s mind off the fact they were in lockdown and back to things that had made him smile so beautifully just minutes ago. 

Bucky looked at Peter, and he seemed to relax just a little, as if thinking about it alone helped calm him down.

Peter jumped up and dropped his notepad to the nearby desk along with his pen, toed out of his shoes, and crawled up onto Bucky’s bed so that he’d be level with him this time around. The look Bucky sent him made him suddenly feel self-conscious about what he’d just done but he feigned confidence and gave him a big, encouraging smile in return.

Bucky told him more about the time before the war. Peter didn’t need to write anything down because technically he didn’t need any of this for his project, but that didn’t stop him from memorizing every little detail.

He told him more about the dances, about the kind of places one would go out to during those times, what they ate, how they slept, and about living together with Steve Rogers.

Bucky’s life in that time seemed so glamorous, and he’d been so popular among the ladies. It made Peter painfully aware of how he’d never been popular. Not even in the slightest. He’s been bullied most of his life and only had two close friends, he did fine in school and stayed out of trouble for the most part and while he’d had a girlfriend before he definitely was no heartthrob. But Bucky… Peter could picture him. He would have been so popular at Peter’s school.

Bucky would never have been friends with him if they’d gone to school together.

That realization shouldn’t have come as a surprise and yet it kind of stung.

It got later and later and eventually the subject came back to the lockdown, and Peter checked his phone, but there were no updates from Tony yet and the door was still locked. It seemed they were going to be stuck all night.

They dragged out their conversation as long as they could but inevitably came the moment when they both decided it would be better if they just went to sleep. That way hopefully by tomorrow the power would be back up, or at least it would be light out again.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Peter suggested as Bucky stood to get ready.

“No you won’t. I’ll sleep on the floor. I’ve done it before.”

“Yeah, which is exactly why you should sleep in the bed. I’m young. And—resilient. And all that good stuff.”

Bucky opened up a closet and looked through it for a moment before he turned to Peter with a shirt and chucked it in his direction.

“Or we’ll both sleep in the bed. It’s big enough.” And with that Bucky wandered into the bathroom, leaving Peter to panic.

They were going to sleep in the same bed. Tonight. Bucky and him. He and Bucky. In the same bed. Together. Tonight. 

Okay.

Peter changed out of his clothes and into the shirt Bucky had given him quickly. He pinched at the shoulders of the shirt that hang loosely around his frame and marveled at just how broad Bucky had to be to fit into that the way he did. Bucky came out of the bathroom just as he was doing that, and when Peter looked up he looked amused.

“What?” He asked. Peter felt his face go warm and dropped his hands to his bare knees.

“Nothing. Just—big.”

They lied down together, side by side, once Peter had had his turn in the bathroom. Just a minute ago, when he’d come out he thought he’d caught Bucky looking at the point where his shirt ended in the hem and his thighs began, but it was too dark to really be sure. 

Peter realized the silence was stretching on again and, wanting to help Bucky forget about whatever thoughts flooded his mind in this kind of silence, he asked; “Would you ever go back if you had the chance?”

When Bucky turned his head to look at him, so did Peter, and after another moment he turned onto his side, which Bucky, in turn, mirrored just the same.

“I don’t think so,” Bucky replied, quietly in the dark, “Things are different, nowadays. As much fun as I had back then I don’t think I would. Besides, I’ve got so much here that’s keeping me right where I am.”

“Like Google?” Peter asked.

“Sure. Like Google.” Maybe it was stupid, but it made Bucky smile, and when Bucky smiled Peter’s heart soared.

“It helps that people nowadays are so much more accepting,” Bucky continued, “Of practically everything. I woulda been in big trouble if I hadn’t gone out with all those gals I mentioned.” 

Peter looked puzzled. “Why?”

“Why? I was a guy living with his best guy friend with no ladies around. I would’ve gotten caught and persecuted if I hadn’t.”

There was something about the phrasing that caught Peter a bit off guard. Did that mean what he thought it meant? Could it? Or maybe he was looking too much into it. Evidently his surprise showed on his face, because Bucky huffed a breathy chuckle and gave Peter another one of those damned smiles.

“Don’t worry Peter. I wouldn’t kiss you.”

Peter’s face shouldn’t have fallen but it did. A little bit.

“You wouldn’t?”

He quickly scrambled to right his wrong, heart beating quickly with the panic rising in his chest because Bucky was looking at him a certain way that he couldn’t quite decipher and Peter had to remind himself that this was a skilled and trained assassin he was talking to, someone who’d done much worse than what he’d get for his slipup if he was lucky.

“I mean—Right. Yeah. No. I know that. Of course I know that you wouldn’t kiss me. That’s not what I expected. At all. I mean, it’s not even what I want, obviously. I hadn’t even thought about it until you just mentioned it, ha ha. Yeah, no. Ew. Gross…” Peter trailed off with a lump in his throat and ice in his stomach and that stupid, creeping feeling of not enough, never enough. 

Bucky’s expression changed slightly, but it was still mostly unreadable, and Peter’s panic only flared up further. Had he said the wrong thing now? Oh god, he’d insulted him. He’d insulted James Buchanan Barnes, arguably the most handsome Avenger when Thor was out of the country, and definitely one of the nicest to him personally. Peter’s chances at getting with him had already been gargantuanly bad and low and now he’d completely annihilated whatever had been leftover from previous attempts at getting Bucky to like him and failing miserably.

Maybe it didn’t matter. Peter would never do right by him anyway. It sucked but it was the truth.

“Peter?” Bucky’s voice got his attention through the myriad of his thoughts buzzing in his brain, and he blinked to focus on the face in front of him. Bucky’s hand was on his cheek. He’d probably been a little too lost in thought.

“I’m sorry,” Peter murmured, “I didn’t mean that.”

There was a long pause between them in which Bucky seemed to mull over something, his thumb seemingly absently brushing over Peter’s cheek and it drove him a little wild.

“Neither did I.”

It didn’t matter whether or not Peter understood what Bucky meant when he said that because Bucky’s fingers were in the hairs at the back of Peter’s neck and the boy watched as Bucky shifted closer to lean in and brush the most tentative kiss to Peter’s lips that he had ever been given.

It was short, soft and brief, and Peter wasn’t sure it happened when there was distance between them once again in the next moment.

But it definitely had.

“Was that…bad?” Bucky asked, sounding unsure.

“No,” Peter responded quickly, “No, not— that wasn’t—”

“So…”

“So we should… Yeah, should try that again.”

This time when Bucky leaned in, Peter was prepared. A tentative hand reached out to Bucky’s chest while the other stayed close to his own body, fingers sprawling over firm muscle as Bucky pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth first, as if testing, searching, and then connected their lips most tenderly again, something Peter had no trouble melting into on this second try.

Despite the fact that Bucky was careful, his skill was evident, if only in the way he pulled Peter closer to his chest and made him feel like there was nothing else in the world he’d rather do at that moment. Nothing about their kiss could have convinced him that it was Bucky’s first attempt at kissing another man.

Peter settled into Bucky’s arms like he belonged there, trying not to shiver beneath the man’s metal arm and instead focusing on their mouths moving together slowly until they broke apart so both of them could process what had just happened.

When Peter could breathe a little better, he asked, “I thought you said…”

“I said what I thought you’d want to hear.” Bucky at least had the decency to look sheepish.

Peter sputtered for a moment as if that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “Obviously not.”

“Obviously not.”

Peter dropped his head and rested it against Bucky’s chest for a minute, though when his eye caught on the scars around Bucky’s metal arm, he repositioned so he could press a kiss to the healed up tissue.

“Should we talk about this?” Bucky asked after a moment’s silence.

“I guess,” Peter murmured, “But—maybe tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow’s fine.”

“Yeah. I just wanna…” Peter snuggled in closer to Bucky, tucking his face into the crook of his neck. Thankfully, Bucky kept his arms around him, and even squeezed gently. “For now, y’know?”

“Yeah. Yeah me too.”

When all the jitters finally subsided, Peter realized tonight’s emotional rollercoaster had exhausted him, and he fell asleep like nobody’s business, tucked up under Bucky’s chin and wrapped in a set of extraordinarily comfortable super soldier arms – which was exactly where he woke up the next morning.

Light filtered in through electronic blinds that Peter couldn’t remember ever drawing the night before, and his back was pressed against a warm, solid chest, puffs of air breezing across the back of his neck with every one of Bucky’s exhales.

He couldn’t quite believe where he was waking up. Last night felt like nothing but a dream and he thought maybe he’d drifted off somewhere during their conversation and then his imagination had figured out the rest. At least he thought so until Bucky pressed an open-mouthed kiss over his pulse point and Peter had never been more awake.

“I guess the power’s back on,” Bucky murmured gruffly, probably referring to the blinds. Or the air-conditioning keeping the room above their bedsheets an even temperature.

“Seems like it,” Peter replied halfheartedly, but when Bucky made to move away, he took his hand before it could retract from around him and held it firmly in place.

Bucky looked bemused, half leaned up, and Peter turned onto his back to look up at him with the beginnings of a blush high on his cheeks.

“I think I’d like to pretend we’re still locked up for a little while longer.”

And clearly Bucky had no qualms with that.


End file.
